By Sarauniya g Usman,Abuja
The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) on Wednesday brought together stakeholders in the maritime industry to develop guidelines to promote safe administration and management of the sector.
The meeting tagged `Stakeholders meeting on Regulation for Maritime Engineering, Naval Architecture and Marine Surveying Practice in Nigeria’ is holding in Abuja.
Speaking at the meeting, the President of COREN, Mr Ali Rabiu, said the engagement was to ensure all-inclusiveness in the regulation of the maritime sector and guarantee engineering best practice.
He said the global maritime industry had witnessed major expansion in scope. Adding that activities which were mainly centred on ship crafts for transportation have grown into specialised exploitation of resources in the marine environment.
According to him, engineers in the maritime industry are therefore expected to be trained to acquire the requisite knowledge, skills and competence to handle design, development, construction, installation, operation and maintenance of these systems.
“The maritime industry has well-established and globally accepted safety and quality assurance standards that are operated by instruments of International Maritime Organisation (IMO) such as Resolutions and Guidelines of SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea), Maritme Safety Committee (MSC), Flag State Administrations and those of the Classification Society.
“The standards are adopted globally and strictly enforced as statutory requirements by most maritime nations and operated independently.
“Essentially, the present safety and quality management structure in the maritime industry derives its sustenance from the strong and consistent support of operators in the maritime industry.
“In line with this COREN constituted a technical committee to develop framework outlining guidelines for engineering practice in the maritime industry.’’ Rabiu said.
Rabiu added that the guidelines would specify requirements for certification of firms and engineers desiring to carry out specified engineering functions in the maritime industry.
He further said that the guidelines would be applicable to the Nigerian Maritime Industry and would cover three main areas of engineering practice which include, Marine Engineering, Naval Architecture and Offshore Engineering.
Earlier, Vice-president COREN, and Chairman, COREN Engineering Investigating Panel, Mr David omonibeke, said the guidelines would help to curtail maritime mishaps which were usually not visible to the general public.
“In construction Industry houses collapsing around everywhere, that’s the one people see. But the one in the maritime domain many people are not aware of.
“We in the industry are aware of people that maybe don’t really have the requisite engineering background training that are doing an engineering practice, and you see the ones that are trained don’t even have the opportunity to practice.
“We want to that narrative. So that if you must practice in the maritime industry, you must do it by the books so you must have a requisite engineering training registrable by COREN,’’Omonibeke said.
Omonibeke said that the council would also be engaging in monitoring of the sector by making unscheduled visits to see if industry players and government agencies are practicing engineering as it ought to be.
The meeting was attended by stakeholders from both the public and private sector of the maritime industry and the academia.